The next morning, you feel like a man who had been wandering the desert for several days.
Your Bro wakes you up, and Kanaya is standing next to him, smiling. "Good morning, Dave. I come bearing gifts."
You are led to the kitchen. There are six bags of blood on your table and upon seeing them your shaking increases, and your pupils are probably dilating, this is what you're going to have to live on, for some reason you're nervous.
"Please take off your shades, I'll need to see your eyes." You do as she asks.
Your Bro looks a little surprised, an eyebrow raised.
"Hmm, yes, you'll be okay for today, possibly tomorrow, depending on how you feel. Now, you have six blood packs here, keep some in the fridge and some in the freezer, don't freeze all of them and defrost them when you plan to feed, because emergency scenarios where you require blood immediately do not leave time for you to defrost it. Once it is defrosted, warm it up in the microwave and cut it open and put it in a specially designated cup, simply because the smell of blood is hard to get off sometimes. If you need to, get someone else to pour it out for you, in case you feel stupidly tempted to bite into the bag." She turns her body slightly more towards bro.
"Dave needs to feed roughly twice a week, maybe three times, but if his eyes become an even more vibrant red, and his pupils become slit-like, especially very suddenly, It means he is dangerously thirsty and will resort to violence to feed, and he probably won't be very aware of what he's doing, so it is important that you allow him enough blood to stop this from happening, but do not allow him to be greedy with his intake. Like the human body, a vampire will become accustomed to large amounts of blood intake and their thirst will increase." Bro nods, and you gulp. You're pretty dangerous now.
"If you need anything, any help, extra blood, or you get down to one or two packs, tell me as soon as possible, and I will get you more as soon as I can. But, since Dave isn't hunting for his food, you'll need to find a way to channel his talent as a hunter, should I be unable to give him blood, and you must sharpen his skills as a fighter, the vampire world can be quite brutal." Bro nods, feeling this isn't too much of a problem.
"I think I can do that." She nods, looking to the various shitty swords you guys have laying around.
"I believe that is all. Your brother and I have arranged that we will go to a café together on Saturday, do keep the day free. The three of us will have a more in depth discussion of the main laws of our people." You nod back to her.
"I'm glad you're feeling more yourself, goodbye until Saturday. Oh, and Dirk? Make sure Dave doesn't take those blood packs before he's supposed too, I know he will be tempted, and if there's anything medically wrong with him, call me, not an ambulance. Humans simply don't know how to deal with vampires."
She leaves in a breeze of perfume and blood, and the door shuts, and Bro tells you to tell Rose they can come over anytime from now. You replace your shades.
You Bro puts the blood away and tells you to keep John away from the fridge. He leaves for his room, telling you to call him if you need anything.
As bros, you had blessed each other with fridge rights. Walk in, take what you want from the fridge, it's chill, but now you're going to have to revoke that right, and probably not tell him why. Jade also raids your fridge regularly, but she lets you know first. Rose always asks first, if she goes into your fridge ever.
The three of them arrive around half an hour later, and you are swamped by Jade and John and scents. You smell them, soap and skin and cake and dog and metal and books. You feel how warm and alive they are and find yourself envious. You find your mind calculating how desirable you find their blood. You shudder.
They pull back, still concerned.
"You're really cold Dave!" Jade tells you, as if you didn't know.
"I know, but I'm fine." You smile reassuringly, and they back off to allow Rose to hug you.
Her hugs are far more delicate than Jade and John's hugs. She smells like books, perfume and lavender. You don't find her blood appealing, and your nose still burns a little, not that it ever really stopped, but it's easy to ignore. You feel comforted by their presence.
She pulls back. "You are rather cold, David. And for a man who was attacked you seem in pretty good shape, I am confused, but glad." You roll your eyes, and hope the gesture was somehow received.
"I was in the hospital for a reason dumbass. He didn't do very much. I was pretty drugged up though, I'm still not quite sure what he did to Me." actually you are, and it's a big fat lie that you don't.
Rose picks up on this, as she always does when you lie, and raises an eyebrow. You give her the "We'll talk about it later" look.
For the love of god don't mention it now.
"That's horrible! We gotta have a pizza and movie night soon, you have been traumatized and I simply cannot stand by without food, cheap liquor and only the best shitty movies." It's John.
"Speaking of which…" he gets up and heads to the fridge.
"Wait!" it comes out more panicked than you'd like. He turns around, surprised.
"What's wrong Dave?" He frowns.
"I…I'll get it for you. What were you wanting?" Rose raises her eyebrows further, and Jade frowns, confused. John looks suspicious of your actions, staring at you as if trying to find an answer for your odd behaviour.
"Soda. Is everything okay Dave?" you nod and walk past him, finding it hard to stop yourself from flash stepping. You angle yourself between the room they are in and the fridge as best you can, should anyone come talk to you while you look through the fridge for the soda, and avoid the red packs. You make an effort to avoid them, even with your eyes. You hear them talking, they think you are out of ear shot.
But you soon discover that your hearing has vastly improved.
"…He's acting really weird. What could be wrong with him?"
"…Maybe he's still traumatised and shocked, he was attacked last night. It could be an excuse to have a moment for himself."
John and Rose.
"I don't know, that doesn't seem like Dave. But he is paler than usual, maybe he still isn't feeling well."
Jade.
You return. They turn to you, and act as if they never spoke, and you pretend you didn't hear them.
You give John his soda.
"Did anyone else want anything? While I'm up and being a good host and shit," you look between the girls, but they don't want anything.
You nod and sit back down.
Your friends decide not to touch the subject of last night any further (for now) and nobody dares go to the fridge, and after two hours Rose sends John and Jade subtle hints that they need to leave so she can talk to you. You see it. You sense the change in the air. Jade nods and the two of them make their excuse and leaves, John frowning as he walks out the door when he thinks you stopped looking.
You sigh.
Rose sits opposite you in a couch-chair. You sit on the three-man sofa, allowing yourself to take up the space John and Jade had just emptied.
"So, David. Why did you lie, and what's wrong with you."
You squirm under the unrelenting pressure that is Rose Lalonde. She raises an eyebrow and your clenching and re-clenching hands, and you have to force yourself not to bite your lip.
"Bro?" You call, not quite shouting. This silence was too heavy to break with your voice. Her gaze was weighing on you, her lack of speech worrying you further. Her eyebrow raises again.
Your brother appears in seconds.
"Is everything okay Dave?" you know he's trying not to sound worried.
"Rose can always tell when I lie about anything, you know that. She's stayed behind to interrogate me, as is her way." You tell him, not even looking at him, studying your sister carefully. She seems amused at your speech. Knowing that you're telling the truth.
"I see. What did you ask him, Rose?"
Rose is curious, you never call for Bro in these situations. Ever.
"I asked him why he was acting so strangely, and what reasons he had to lie about why he was put in hospital." Bro thinks for a moment.
"I can see why he did. The truth behind what happened was…strange. And draining." You scoff at the pun he probably ironically used.
"Then do tell me the story. I have all day." She gets herself more comfortable. The woman is relentless.
Your Bro sighs and sits next to you. "She is trust worthy Dave, and your friends deserve to know anyway, Besides, Rose is your sister. Siblings share."
You sigh in defeat.
One of the views you and your brother share is that it is better to know a difficult or confusing truth than to live a pleasing lie, though you suppose you betrayed that value by lying in the first place.
"Fine, I'll start." You tell them. Rose nods, and remains silent, patiently waiting for you to begin.
"My phone died while I was at the club. I missed the last bus, and started walking home. I was almost home when that guy attacked me. He attacked my neck, more specifically, and I did feel drugged up, that was truth." She says nothing. Waiting for one of you to continue.
"I got the call at about twenty past four that my lil' bro had been admitted into hospital with extreme blood loss and they weren't sure if he would make it. I got there as fast as I could, and they gave me his stuff and took me to his room. There he was. Pale as shit and attached to a blood-pack. The nurse shoved past me to get in with a heart monitor, and she checked his pulse before setting it up. She told me to call the doctor.
He was pronounced dead two minutes later. He was moved to a morgue and people were making calls about whether he was an organ donor, they did ask me, but I didn't answer them." Rose looks shocked by this point, looking between the Striders and trying to keep calm. The news having the expected impact on the blonde woman.
"I was sitting with him in the morgue. They weren't allowed to do anything without my permission and I didn't speak much, only to ask if they'd made a mistake, if there was anything they could do." His voice sounds level, but you can imagine he's remembering it and remembering the pain and sadness he must have felt.
"I wasn't sure what I was planning on achieving. I sat there with him. Then I thought I saw his eyebrow twitch." You listened carefully, curious to hear what he saw in comparison to yourself.
"Then suddenly he's screaming and thrashing and I'm yelling for a doctor-" He stops to clear his throat and stop the rising panic in his voice.
"But none showed up, so I hold him to this table, and I wondered why nobody had come in to see why there was screaming in a morgue. But nobody came. Then a few minutes later he flops down again, and if he wasn't panting so hard I would've thought I'd lost him again." you raise an eyebrow. And continue for him.
"From my point of view, everything was loud voices and cold floaty-ness in some sort of endless void, which was kinda shit. And then there was this pain, and I'd never felt anything like it. I wasn't sure if I'd screamed or not, I was focused on getting back to Bro. I heard him talk to the doctor. So I knew that the more pain I was in, the closer to waking up I was. And when I did wake up I was super relieved, and then the doctor finally arrives, and her names Kanaya, and she explains what had happened." Rose still listens, but you think she may be struggling to believe you.
"I see, well, this is certainly very difficult to believe. But I get the feeling this isn't the worst of it, am I correct?" you and your Bro nod. She kinda had that coming.
She sighs. "Alright, lay it on me."
And so Bro continues where you left off.
"She explained that Dave had died, that he's dead right now. He was turned into a Vampire. Thankfully Kanaya is also a vampire, so she explained some basics and sorted the paper work out. Now, obviously, I didn't believe her. But she told me to check for Dave's pulse. Go on, do It." you sigh, how many people were going to try and find a pulse on you in the near future?
Rose's eyes go wide and her face screams that she's completely shocked and speechless, and she is resisting the great urge to call bullshit. You can see it in her eyes.
"There…There is no pulse. I checked several times." She did. Way to state the obvious, Rose.
"Yup, I'm dead as a doornail. But not." She steps back. Unsure how to react.
"Don't be scared of him Rose, we're going to keep him under control." Scared of you? You look at her again, sniffing the air around her. She's fine.
"I'm not, merely dumbfounded. And if you would get your great undead schnoz out of my space, thank you Dave." You freeze, realising you had leaned closer to her.
"Sorry. I was trying to see how you were feeling. I'm such a considerate-asshole brother, you are truly blessed." She laughs, seemingly relieved your personality hasn't changed.
"Well, I am certainly intrigued. I would like to know more about this vampirism, I'll tell you if I think of any questions. I'd rather like to go home and think on this information. But first, two things." She says, and Bro raises an eyebrow in her direction.
"One, I think you should tell Jade and John about this, and two, what could possibly be in your fridge that you didn't want us to see." She smiles at you both, a sickly sweet smile that is surely poison, as almost all of Rose's smiles are.
"Blood packs, Kanaya dropped them off before you guys arrived." You answer, and she nods, standing and making sure she has everything she arrived with.
"Think about what I said, Dave. They deserve to know." You sigh as you close the door.
Hey hey, another chapter. I didn't do a disclaimer, but do I even need too? I obviously don't own these characters. The Huss does. Come on people.